[This review
was published in the Jan/Feb 1995 issue of Conservative Review, pp. 35-8.]

Book Review

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in
American Life

By Richard J.
Herrnstein and Charles Murray

The Free Press, 1994

Reviewed by Dwight D.
Murphey

The Bell Curve has provoked more comment
than any book in this reviewer’s memory.In October, The New Republic
published an 11-page synopsis written by Herrnstein and Murray themselves,
followed by a series of commentaries by a variety of authors.In early December, National Review followed with a symposium of its own.But these have been just the more extensive
treatments; reviews, columns and even television features have appeared
ubiquitously, so that it is hard to imagine an American who is even modestly
alert to the discussion of public issues who is not by now aware of the book.

A fine work
that deals with important subjects, it merits the attention it is
receiving.As the reader will see, I am
critical of the book taken as a whole, but it makes a number of valuable points
that I will discuss later in this review.

Considered
in its entirety, it is an odd book, one that is excellent in much the same way
that a camel, arguably one of nature’s more functional and yet aesthetically
least satisfying creatures, is excellent.

Some
subjects, such as intelligence and the statistics that go into studying it, primarily
reflecting the psychometric work of the late Richard Herrnstein, are discussed
extensively.Because of their
prominence, disproportionate to the rest of the work, these may be likened to
the humps on the camel’s back.Other
subjects that are important to the analysis are hardly discussed at all; and
the theme that seeks to tie it all together seems, like a camel’s spindly legs,
to insubstantial to support the humps’ great bulk.

Subjects that are slighted.To be specific, the authors tell us that low
intelligence correlates with the population of an increasingly menacing
underclass in the United States,
and the book contains a series of chapters about specific social problems in
which it is shown that each problem correlates with low intelligence.Regression analysis, the
authors say, shows that intelligence is a cause of most, if not all, of these
problems.

What needs
to be noticed, though, is that such a correlation by itself, even if it
indicates causation, is in no way the same things as a full consideration of
the causative factors that have, since 1965, led many people of lower
intelligence to act as they do.The
overall level of I.Q. did not drop precipitously for any group within a half a
decade (1965-70), but the behavior certainly did.The analysis of those other causative factors
would require studies of the ideology of victimization, the impact of moral
relativism, the disincentives of welfare, the pathologies of the “therapeutic
state,” the decline of the family and of true community--most, if not all, of
which have received serious attention in Murray’s other work, but which receive
only passing mention here, especially in comparison to the massive attention
that the book gives to the factor of intelligence.

In law,
juries are instructed that one thing is a cause of another if the second “would
not have occurred but for the
occurrence of the first.” Applying this
in the context of The Bell Curve, we
can perhaps say that the pathologies of the underclass would not exist if it
were not for its members’ lower intelligence.But this does not mean that there are not a number of other causal
agents, such as I have listed above, that also
constitute “but-for causes.”Causation is not limited to one cause.There is compelling reason to think that but for the ideological turn-for-the-worse that America took in the mid-1960s, the members of
our society with relatively low intelligence would for the most part have
comported themselves as good citizens.When we say this, we are not saying anything that Murray
doesn’t know himself.It’s just that the
book places so much emphasis on intelligence, as part of spelling out so thoroughly
Herrnstein’s work, that these other, perhaps more
important, causal factors are given short shrift.To the extent they are discussed, it is in
the realm of moral philosophy, not of the empirico-mathematical
science that the authors apply to intelligence.

The insubstantial nature of
the theme.Because my own
experience is that book reviewers are sometimes lazy and don’t even read the
book they are reviewing, I wondered as I read The Bell Curve whether many commentators would separate themselves
enough from the book’s elaborate discussion of statistics and intelligence to
even notice the overall theme.It has
been a pleasant surprise to find that many have.Much of the commentary has been of high
quality.

The theme
points to the occurrence of an on-going “cognitive partitioning” in American
society.Brought on by rapidly
increasing technology, it is a process that separates a super-intelligent
“cognitive elite” from the mass of ordinary people.These in turn are separated from a growing
underclass that is drained of intelligence to the point of becoming a
pathological “critical mass.”(I am
tempted to speak of the “cognitively challenged,” but we should be careful
about that, since it would invite the addition of yet another category to the
list of persons who are entitled to the expensive protections of the Americans
with Disabilities Act.)The partitioning
simultaneously threatens democracy with its growing class stratification and
points ahead to an increasing assault on civilized life by members of the
underclass.

Taken on
its face, this appears important.So why
do I call it “insubstantial”?For three
reasons:

·Because Herrnstein and Murray give it such
truncated treatment.The reader is left
to wonder until the final chapter “how does all of this about intelligence fit
into anything?”, and the authors speak of the partitioning without offering
much by way of solutions, certainly not with regard to the upper end of the
predicted hierarchy.These things
suggest that they subordinated the general theme to their extensive discussion
of the specifics about intelligence.The
unifying theme clearly plays a secondary role and may even have been an
afterthought brought to mind precisely to provide a theme.

·Because the theme about the rise of a cognitive elite centered in the professions and
technical trades, when stated forebodingly, isn’t fully convincing.The authors suggest that it portends a
closed-class aristocracy.But there is
nothing necessarily exclusive about it; it does nothing to make impossible the
success of countless other people, albeit somewhat less than geniuses, who can
make fortunes in the many other pursuits of life and thereby come to belong,
also, to the “elite.”The great wealth
made by many ball players and entertainment personalities comes to mind, but a
moment’s reflection tells us that there are countless other possibilities for
those who make up with character and energy for what they lack in genius.Indeed, there are many situations in life
where character and energy are more
“predictive of success” than I.Q.The
elite will be neither small nor exclusive.

·Because it is not fully persuasive, either, in
its discussion of the “underclass.”As
we know from the country’s experience prior to the mid-1960s, there is nothing about
low intelligence that condemns the less intelligent to less than a productive,
civilized existence.True, it conduces
to it in several ways, not the least of which is the
foreshortened “time perspective” that Edward Banfield
talked about several years ago in The Unheavenly City.But a reversal of the other causative factors that have since the 1960s
led to a “menacing” underclass—alienated ideology, moral relativism,
overweening paternalism, the decline of the family, etc.—would make the situation
far less apocalyptic.This would take
away much of the impact of “cognitive partitioning.”Murray
knows this himself, and so devotes attention to an alternative vision of
society along neoconservative lines, favoring, as Irving Kristol
has, a conservative welfare state (i. e., one whose
redistributive programs reward acceptable rather than pathological
behavior).The addition of I.Q. and
“cognitive partitioning” to the equation has added a causal ground for
pessimism, to be sure, but one that is not nearly so compelling as the book’s
emphasis makes it seem.Murray’s
other writing, such as in Losing Ground,
is in many ways a better statement of the overall situation.

The book’s
camel-like nature almost certainly arises out of the fact that two very different
thinkers have come together to collaborate on a book that merges their work
quite unevenly.Herrnstein, who died of
lung cancer this past September, was an empirico-mathematical
social scientist from Harvard; Murray
is a social philosopher and cultural commentator from the American Enterprise
Institute.The result of their merger
goes into great detail about the psychometric evaluation of intelligence,
including even some quite excellent instruction to the reader on the basics of
statistics.This reflects
Herrnstein.It is all placed in a
context of social philosophy, but without having space to elaborate on it
sufficiently.That is Murray’s
part.One way to look at it is that
Murray
has performed the service of making possible a vehicle for bringing
Herrnstein’s psychometrics to wide public attention.

But enough
mention of the book’s overall awkwardness.What is really valuable about The
Bell Curve is found in its specifics.Here are some that I have picked for discussion:

Upholding freedom of inquiry.A few of the commentaries have bordered on
hysteria, and have pointed to the potential for reawakening what they see as
the sleeping giant of a Nazi-like abuse of eugenics.Their point is valid enough as a reminder
that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” but otherwise such fears, in
the context of a work of serious research and thought, should be seen for what
they are: a form of hyperbole that seeks to foreclose inquiry.If we must perceive the Nazi shadow every
time we speak honestly about race, we are in serious trouble.

One of the
very valuable contributions of the book is that it runs counter to the
taboo.By its very existence, it cries
out for freedom of inquiry.The question
is raised, “Why bring up these issues?They are better left unmentioned, unstudied; and to the extent they are
not, society should impress a taboo upon them!”What we need to realize about this is that it raises again the issues
that we once tough were settled when modern Western civilization came to
embrace the outlook of the open society.It was just two hundred years ago that the delightful English
conversationalist Samuel Johnson could argue that “every society has a right to
preserve public peace and order, and therefore has a good right to prohibit the
propagation of opinions which have a dangerous tendency…. No member of society
has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what that society holds to be
true.”I am among the first to argue
that there are a number of social cements that need to be preserved to maintain
even a free society, but we also—contrary to Johnson—need to hold fast to our
faith that the inquiring mind is one of the principal pillars of freedom, both
as a means and an end.

Implications for America’s growing system of minority preferences.I think it is safe to say that a substantial
number of Americans now sense that “civil rights” has betrayed its initial
moral premises and has become an ideological-political-opportunistic con game.The
Bell Curve strikes a mighty blow to the myths that underlie this untoward
extension.I suspect that it is this,
far more than a genuine apprehension of impending Nazism,
that throws the greatest fear into the multiculturalist
Left.

Prior to
the civil rights movement that followed World War II, American society lived
with a form of “cultural exceptionalism.”White Americans generally believed quite
sincerely in the principles of a free society, with include “equality under the
law” and a willingness to judge each person on his merits. But during the Progressive movement and for
several years thereafter it was felt that historical circumstances, coming out
of the existence of slavery and its aftermath, justified the
compartmentalization that was reflected in the concept then known as “equal by
separate.”

As well all
know, this came under the most powerful moral attack
during the civil rights movement.Blacks
were no longer to be treated as an exception; it was imperative to make
universal the principles of legal equality and individual merit.The consensus for those values was so strong
that they seemed self-evident to most Americans, who were even willing to
impose upon themselves a system of legislation commanding individuals in the
great run of life’s activities to judge people by their merits and not to make
race any part of their criteria for decision.Ours was to be a color-blind society.

It wasn’t
long, though, before liberal ideology swept us past that.The issue of color-blindness became muddied
by the presence of “de facto residuals”
of the earlier social order.The desire
to overcome those residuals suggested compensatory preferences, which themselves would suggest, once again, a form of “cultural exceptionalism.”But
the preferences didn’t long retain their character as temporary expedients to
return us to a truly color-blind society.Instead, the ideology, now confident of its power, came to embrace
“multiculturalism” and the “benefits of diversity.”The idea of color-blindness went out of
fashion, except for whites for whom it remained mandatory, among the
“politically correct”; now people are to be advanced because of their blackness, or their being female, or their
ethnicity.It is this that amounts to a
“con game,” since it transfers the moral impetus from one thing to something
else quite different and because it invokes a double standard, proscribing to
whites, and especially to white males, what it encourages in others.It has led us into a double-track system of
rights and privileges, leaving behind a unitary system of law and of
Constitutional protections.

It is into
this context that Herrnstein and Murray have come forth to splash a bucket of
cold water onto the amorous coupling.Assuming they are right—and it takes an expert in social science
methodology, which I am not, to judge that—what they point to is shattering:

·That the distribution of intelligence among
blacks—in a bell-shaped curve that is offset somewhat to the left of that of
the society at large—is not such as to make available large numbers of persons
who are intellectually capable of success within the cognitive
professions.There are many very
intelligent blacks, but their percentage at the higher scale of intelligence
doesn’t match the percentage of blacks in the population as a whole.What this means, say, is that if universities
and government departments adopt a policy, as many are, of hiring almost all
minorities until a certain social reconstruction is achieved, they will be
competing for the same small pool of qualified individuals.This will force them to lower their
standards, will cast a shadow of doubt over the achievements of all blacks, and
will cause resentment among those who, though better qualified, are
displaced.The idea that such racial
preference can be indulged without adverse consequences depends upon the faith
in equal intelligence, and that is precisely what Herrnstein and Murray are
puncturing.

·That blacks are already
equally, and sometimes overly, represented in high-level positions—and in
education, occupations and wages—relative to what would be predictable if
intelligence were the criterion.The
revolutionary impact of this is that it contradicts the myth of continuing
“victimization” (a new word for the old Marxist concept of
“exploitation”).The idea that a vicious
mainstream society is victimizing minorities is the glue that holds together
the ideological alliance of the Left’s alienated intellectual culture with the
groups that, the intelligentsia hopes, will long relish being disaffected and
unassimilated.

Dysgenic trends.Three genetic forces, the authors say, are at
work to lower the level of intelligence in the United
States: a higher birthrate within the less
intelligent underclass, a postponement of child-bearing for several years by
more intelligent women, and the nature of recent immigration, which has been
from the Third World.The first two of these forces are at work not just within the society at
large, but also within the black community, leading to a worsening of prospects
for blacks within a civilization that is increasingly rewarding
intelligence.This is a matter that
should be of major concern to blacks themselves.

Of course,
a discussion of anything genetic is taboo, since an investigation of dysgenics
automatically conjures up images of Hitler’s abuse of eugenics.The facts are important, however; they
certain call, as the authors do, for at least so much as a repeal of the
policies that presently favor more babies by low-income women.The issue isn’t whether we should impose a
draconian eugenics, but whether we should stop doing things to encourage
dysgenics.

A call for a more humane
social order.It may seem
incongruous to mention it in light of the cries that have been raised that the
book, by comparing the intelligence of races, is proto-racist, but we should
take time to notice that Herrnstein and Murray sketch the outlines of what
could be a much more humane society.Understandably, they see few profound human satisfactions in the
crumbling, warring inner cities fostered by the custodial, therapeutic
state.They offer the alternative of a
truly free society, in which people at all levels find sustenance, warmth and a
“valued place” through the local, interpersonal processes that multiply so
profusely within humanity when government and ideology don’t get in people’s
way.

Two
criticisms of this vision can be made from a conservative perspective.First, that “some sort of redistribution is
here to stay” should, at the very least, be debated.What is needed is a vigorous discussion on
the Right about whether a “conservative welfare state” is in fact a minimal
necessity.This especially means
identifying and scrutinizing its specific components, comparing them, as
libertarians and classical liberals are so wont to do, with voluntaristic
and local alternatives.

Second,
Herrnstein and Murray say that we must “return to the melting pot as metaphor
and color blindness as the ideal.”It is
rapidly becoming too late simply to endorse a melting pot without
qualification.We have for thirty years
been flooded with Third World immigration.The melting pot was a splendid ideal when the
newcomers would melt into a high Euro-American civilization.We ought strenuously to oppose, however, a
reverse process whereby Euro-American civilization melts into that of the Third
World.And that is what
will happen unless Americans quickly form and effectively enforce a consensus
to limit immigration.The authors
express concern about the current immigration because of its dysgenic
effects.The concern must go further and
center on the long-term continuity of the United
States culturally and politically.But this is hardly a criticism of Herrnstein
and Murray; it is too much to expect them to have carried the dialogue that
far.The issues they bit off are more
than enough for any two thinkers, however courageous.

Nothing in
this reviewer’s memory has done so much to provoke so stimulating and
widespread a discussion.This is a
perfect time to initiate something akin to a Nobel Prize for Freedom of
Inquiry.Herrnstein and Murray would win
it hands down.